PUBLIC HEARING ON THE RENEWAL FOR MANHATTAN CHARTER SCHOOL IS TONIGHT!

The charter gold rush into gentrifying neighborhoods like the Lower East Side goes on, supported by SUNY.
See the full 2 hour plus video of last week's forum on Eva invasion, nee cancelled hearing. Sorry I can't make it to tonight's hearing.


https://vimeo.com/116592016

PUBLIC HEARING ON THE RENEWAL FOR MANHATTAN CHARTER SCHOOL IS TONIGHT!

PS 142 AMALIA CASTRO

100 ATTORNEY STREET

SPEAKER SIGN IN IS AT 5:45

Here’s what you need to know:

· The CSD1 community has not received adequate notification of this hearing on the proposal to double MCS by adding middle school grades.

· There has been no analysis of the impact of the MCS Proposal on CSD1 schools and community.

· CSD1 residents and stakeholders deserve the opportunity for authentic input into a renewal that is in fact an expansion and a potential merger.

· The MCS PROPOSAL DOES NOT MEET THE DOCUMENTED NEEDS OF THE CSD1 COMMUNITY

· The D1 community has devised a number of building blocks via a collaborative process that should serve as the basis for any new school in the community.

· Lack of oversight and regulation of charters causes increased inequities among school communities. Particularly different enrollment practices result in different demographics and increased inequities

· The MCS Proposal fails to meet the NYS Charter School Act standards and requirements for a charter renewal.

MCS serves almost no ELLS because its programmatic offerings do not support ELLS which is out of compliance with federal guidelines

· SUNY CSI documents that MCS2 does not offer adequate programs to serve ELLS

· Despite these programmatic design failure the MCS model was replicated by SUNY in defiance of clear federal standards for providing FAPE to English learners, students with disabilities

· The MCS Board and administration has a history of demonstrated bad faith in D1

• Long history of complaints about MCS outreach efforts and colocation partnership.

· Many of the members of the Board of Trustees and top administration responsible for the creation and operation of Manhattan Charter School belong to the elite network of privatizers and education reform insiders at NYC DoE, SUNY CSI and vendors to MCS, demonstrating serious conflicts of interest.

· Yet the mission of Manhattan Charter School is based on practicing and modeling honesty, integrity and respect as part of educational efforts and social interaction

· School quality cannot be measured by mere test scores, and not without controlling for inputs

· Colocating charter schools in public school space takes important resources away from local public schools

· D1 schools are already suffering from over- crowding and rising class sizes

· There is no demand for additional charter school seats in D1

Current charters schools in D1 already attend local enrollment fairs and are included in the DoE’s enrollment directories yet are still under enrolled despite additional independent marketing and recruiting.

· Charter school wait list are artificially inflated

· MCS does not fill their seats after the 2nd grade

· Although there are no formal wait lists, there is demand (often undocumented) for local public schools in NYC and in D1

· Based on phony wait lists and supposedly superior test scores, DoE engineered and justified the colocation of MCS 2 at JHS 56

· In a letter from Elizabeth Rose (now Interim Acting Deputy Chancellor of Operations), DoE claimed there would be no harms to the 3 high needs schools sharing the Corrlears Complex at JHS 56:

However, the current colocation of MCS2 presents serious issues of inequity and threats to the school quality environment in JHS 56

· MCS has on-going issues with compliance with even the very limited regulation imposed by charter authorizers

Community Education Council for District 1 (CEC1)

2013-2015 Members:

Lisa Donlan/Arnette Scott/Daniel Becker

Moses Seuram/Marco Battistella/Latesha Moore

Olivia Rychter/Fatima Baba/Luke Henry

Stephanie Thompson

PS 20 Anna Silver School

166 Essex Street

New York, NY 10002

Cec1@schools.nyc.gov

(212)353-2946 (p)

(212)353-2945 (f)

http://cecd1.org/